A College Path for Every Student

A College Path for Every Student

College Summit is a national nonprofit organization that partners with schools and districts to strengthen a college-going culture and increase college enrollment rates so that all students graduate career and college-ready. Founded in 1993 by J. B. Schramm in the basement of a low-income housing project in Washington, DC, the program was created to change the trajectory of talented young people that Schramm was seeing. Too many of them were “graduating” from his teen center to the streets. Earlier in his career, while working his way through Harvard Divinity School as a Freshman Advisor to undergraduates, Schramm had seen the hunger colleges have for low-income talent and their inability to connect with this talent. He became determined to help admissions offices see students, like Antoine Tate, the way he saw them. He enlisted the best writing instructor he’d seen in graduate school and the finest urban youth worker he knew. Together, they designed a model to help bright, low-income students who, with the right support during their senior year, could make a successful postsecondary transition and propel their lives (and communities) in a positive direction.

Although College Summit began in DC, the model didn’t get the traction in this region that it got in other parts of the country. Schramm’s network of contacts in other areas was stronger, and partnerships with school systems were more accessible elsewhere. However, all the time he was growing College Summit nationally, Schramm’s desire to foster and nurture a college-growing culture for the thousands of talented children in low-income communities in the National Capital Region intensified. He wanted to bring the program home to the District and surrounding jurisdictions, but like Tate, he and his team faced challenges and needed help to make their organizational dreams a reality.

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